From the Left

From the Right

The right calls for the GOP to appeal beyond Trump’s base in order to be successful in the next election, and offers thoughts on potential 2020 Democratic frontrunners.

“Let's dispel with this fiction that Joe Biden isn't running for president... The bigger question I have is not whether Biden will run but whether the pitch he is planning to make to Democratic voters is the right one for this moment, against this President. Is being the ‘most qualified person’ the way to sell yourself to Democratic voters desperately in search of someone who can beat Donald Trump?”

"[It’s worth noting that] Democrats have had more luck in November when the nominee has been younger than the average age of the field. The four times that the Democratic nominees have been older than the average age of the field? 1984, 1988, 2004 and 2016 — years in which the Democrats lost the general election.”

Washington Post

There’s “John Kasich, the stalwart never-Trumper who says he may or may not run for president in 2020—maybe as a Republican challenging Donald Trump or maybe as an independent, because all options are open unless they’re not—[who] stopped in Philadelphia on Friday to practice his Art of the Tease...

"Is ‘the middle,’ assuming it still exists, firm enough to afford him footing? Or was the poet W. B. Yeats correct when he wrote, ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold’?”

The Atlantic

Meanwhile, “the former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is seriously considering running for president as a Democrat – a prospect that has horrified many progressives... Between his stale politics, his stiffness as a campaigner, and his identity as a restrained elite in an era of raucous populism, Bloomberg’s bid to secure the Democratic nomination seems destined to fail spectacularly...

“For better or worse, it’s safe to say Trump will... routinely insert his advisory and critical tweets into the the other party’s process, which will delight media and suck oxygen from Democrats, as designed...

“No doubt he knows how to play an audience, to string it along and keep it coming back, as he did for 12 years of good ratings with ‘The Apprentice.’ But that reality show was weekly. Trump’s current executive producer gig is daily, sometimes hourly. The turmoil. The firings. The ego. The palace intrigues. The abrupt reverses. It bothers both establishments, which pleases Trump’s base. But it’s also exhausting for a mass audience that might just want a competent president free of boastful drama.”

McClatchy

From the Right

The right calls for the GOP to appeal beyond Trump’s base in order to be successful in the next election, and offers thoughts on potential 2020 Democratic frontrunners.

As the electorate becomes more diverse, “unless the GOP does better with black and Hispanic voters, the only way the party of Lincoln can win would be to gain an even larger share of a smaller white voting bloc... The best way for President Trump to improve his job approval – and therefore the likelihood of his re-election – is to speak and act as president of all Americans, not just his base.”

Fox News

“While the city-dwelling bourgeois liberals and women are flocking to the left, there’s a huge working-class electorate tired of feminist overreach, Me Too-era insanity, the left’s obsession with transgender politics, and the injustice perpetuated by college kangaroo courts...

“It is not just white men who are becoming disillusioned with these parts of the Democratic Party, but non-white men––Hispanics, Asians, and especially blacks––as well as their mothers, sisters, and wives.”

"The problem isn’t policy. It’s the way Trump’s personal conduct and continued willingness to troll his opponents on Twitter have alienated voters who were prepared to embrace him in 2016 as an alternative to Hillary Clinton and the political establishment she represented.”

National Review

Many note that “everyone’s running for the Democratic presidential nomination, apparently including their previous nominee, Hillary Clinton. Normally, primary voters want some proof of success in electoral politics before nominating someone to run for president, but Donald Trump didn’t need it for either the primary or the general election... That could be how [Stacey] Abrams and [Beto] O’Rourke pull off an outsider charge in 2020 for the nomination too!”

Hot Air

Some suggest that “Bernie, who can make a persuasive case that he was robbed of the nomination in 2016, has an idealistic and energized constituency to build a candidacy on. What’s more, pitting a socialist against a nationalist might be the most honest race Americans can hope for in 2020.”

Washington Examiner

Others, however, posit, “I can sort of imagine a scenario in which Bernie is ruled out as too old and Biden stumbles over issues relating to insufficient wokeness... and Democrats are forced to take a second look at Hillary. What I can’t imagine is why, having taken that second look and remembering that she’s the only candidate who’s proved she’s capable of losing to Trump, they wouldn’t keep on looking.”